8. SUMMARY

In this article I have introduced some of the facets of inflation in a
fairly simple manner. If you are interested in going beyond this, then
the inflationary production of perturbations is reviewed in
Ref. [21],
inflation and structure formation in
Ref. [2]
and particle physics aspects of inflation in
Ref. [10].

At present, inflation is the most promising candidate theory for the
origin of perturbations in the Universe. Different inflation models lead
to discernibly different predictions for these perturbations, and hence
high-accuracy measurements are able to distinguish between models,
excluding either all or the vast majority of them.

Since its inception, the inflationary cosmology has been a gallery of
different models, and the gallery has continually needed extension after
extension to house new acquisitions. In all the time up to the present,
very few models have been discarded. However, the near future holds
great promise to finally begin to throw out inferior models, and, if the
inflationary cosmology survives as our model for the origin of
structure, we can hope to be left with only a narrow range of models to
choose between.